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One thought on “The duty hikes didn’t save retail”

While it is true that population decline is a factor, I think it needs to be stressed that it was not population decline per se, but, rather, population decline of a certain demographic of a certain level of purchasing power that was the key. Yes, the transfer of businesses to overseas jurisdictions, and the resulting transfer of (mostly) white-collar expats greatly reduced that purchasing power population, while similarly Bermudians (as even the expat group would have in this economy) are largely ‘tightening their belts’ and so even the domestic purchasing power population has declined.

The duty hikes just pushed the prices even beyond that (marginally, true) of the domestic purchasing power population. I can see why they tried it though, quite frankly they were a bit dammed if they did and dammed if they didn’t – try to shore up the local retail sector in face of an exodus of the white-collar expat clientele. While the focus should have been on minimising that exodus, I’m not sure what exactly we could have done about that. Even tweaking the term limits, I don’t see how that would really make us more attractive a jurisdiction compared to others right now.